Directed Discovery
By Pluralsight
Pluralsight coined "Directed Discovery" to describe the ways in which their product experience teams operate. The approach involves many customer conversations rooted in ethnographic techniques. There are four phases each team completes using this framework:
Voice of customer. In the first phase, the team is focused on exploration and talking to customers. They ask customers four specific questions: 1. What do you think about this feature? Does it solve a problem? 2. What should it do? 3. What it’s competing with? (Not just other products, but your time, interest, etc. 4. How do you want to be made aware this feature exists?
Customer preference testing. Designs are presented to the customer based on the initial exploration. The designs are high-fidelity wireframes or mocks to allow for rapid iteration. The team seeks raw, honest feedback from customers to guide the direction of the design and understand if they are on the right track to solving a high-value problem.
Customer confirmation testing. The team measures qualitative and quantitative customer data to further validate the product.
Launch. The alpha and beta versions are released to customers. The team continues to monitor feedback and data to iterate on the product.